Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Consultant and Leader Discount Offered"50 Years of Excellence"Co-sponsored by ICAPGen, UGA, and the BYU Center for Family History and Genealogy

Family history consultants and leaders are being offered a substantial discount to the "50 Years of Excellence" family history conference on November 8 and 9 at BYU.

The presenters are experts in their fields and areas of interest include North American and European research, methodology, internet resources, technological advances, FamilySearch and FamilyTree, and several computer labs.

Sometime before the end of 2013, the 12-millionth source will be added to FamilySearch. I'm excited to announce the launch of the "12-Millionth Source Challenge." So, we'll be watching closely to see who submits that milestone source. Learn how you can be a part of the excitement.

FamilySearch has reached a significant milestone. Last week, the 75,000th article was published in the Research Wiki. The Wiki is a worldwide encyclopedia of genealogy knowledge at your fingertips.This is really big news!

I was so glad we didn't have a heavy assignment for the Salt Lake Community College, Genealogy Course this week. Little did I know that the cold medicine I was taking was going to cause me more harm than good. By Monday I started to have stress seizures. Something I had not experiences in 3-4 years. The medicine I take for them had no effect, which was weird. I wasn't until I woke up Tuesday morning that it occurred to me that my cold medicine had a warning that it could cause nervousness, dizziness and sleeplessness. Well I had all three symptoms, plus my heart was racing and making me extremely tired. Thankfully I improved once I stopped taking the medicine. My doctor has now given me a long list of things I can't take, which seems to include anything worth-while for a cold.

The homework is due on Wednesday so I was grateful I had actually done most of it last week. We were working on sources and had to add a transcript, comment on the source and add the sources evidence quality. We didn't need to hand that in last week but I knew it would be asked for in a future class. Yup, that's what we had to hand in this week.

There were some additional sources I had to go over on the list. Our reading and videos covered the FamilySearch Wiki and how to find resources in your localities. We touched on USGenWeb and finding sources by State, County and Towns. The other two sites were cemeteries - Find A Grave and Interment.net . I was familiar with all of them so it wasn't hard for me to find things (again) and add them to my separate database created just for this class.

On the USGenWeb site for New York I found a lot of broken cemetery links for Washington and Warren counties where my family is from. I knew the cemeteries records were there so I Googled them and yup they were there. Looks like some redesigning is going on for the websites so I was glad there was a back door to still get to the cemetery record transcripts I wanted. There were new cemetery indexes being added and I was tickled to see more family members listed. I can't wait to sit down and explore all the new leads.

The only problem I had this week with class was the RootsTech video we needed to watch "Researching Ancestors Online for Beginners" by Laura Prescott kept freezing. You could watch it for a minute or two then it would freeze, then crash, then you needed to start it over again. I endured it until I got to 14 minutes and I called it quits. I was both frustrated and sad with that happening. It seemed like an excellent presentation. Hopefully the RootsTech website is working better today because I plan on watching it this afternoon.

After a cold, seizures, and exhaustion I was able to create in RootsMagic a PDF of my Source List showing my detail text/transcription, analysis of the source in the comments area, and evidence quality, before our Wednesday night deadline. I think that is amazing so I'm giving myself a gold star!

Scottish Property Valuation Rolls for 1920 Go Online‘Homes fit for heroes’? New historical records offer a fascinating snapshot of Scottish society in the wake of the First World WarThe names and addresses of more than 2.6 million people living in Scotland during the post-WW1 period will be published online at 10am on Monday 28 October, as records of Scottish properties in 1920 are released onScotlandsPeople.gov.uk, the government’s family history website.

Comprising over 76,000 digital images taken from 169 volumes, these new records - known as Valuation Rolls - cover every type of property in Scotland that was assessed as having a rateable value in 1920. As the records contain details for the owners and occupiers of properties, they will offer genealogists and historians fresh insight into Scottish society in 1920.

Each Valuation Roll entry on the website is fully searchable by name and address, with the records listing the names of owners, tenants and occupiers of each property - in many cases occupations are also included. As the Rolls include all types of property, from castles and mansions to crofts and tenements, in turn, the records also include people from across the whole social spectrum.

The Rolls also reveal some fascinating trends in Scotland’s social history at this time, such as the building of the first council housing estate, and the growth of urban allotments and gardens cultivated by working-class gardeners to achieve self-sufficiency. The Rolls also reveal the widespread disposal of land by owners who faced new tax and other burdens from 1918 onwards, and the opportunities for tenant farmers to buy their own farms.Researchers at the National Records of Scotland have also been spotting celebrities (and family ancestors of famous people) in the records, and have highlighted entries for Muriel Spark’s father, Sir William Burrell, Sir Harry Lauder, Sir Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Samuel Peploe and the great-grandparents of The Proclaimers. The researchers have even found a quirky entry for a cottage in Dunblane, named for a poem by Robert Tannahill, the contemporary of Burns.Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs in the Scottish Government, said:“ScotlandsPeople is a wonderful resource that enables Scots, those of Scottish descent and anyone with an interest in Scotland to discover more about our nation’s fascinating family and social history. The release of the Valuation Rolls for 1920 strengthens the digital tapestry of Scotland’s story that is available through Scotland’s national archive.”Tim Ellis, Registrar General and Keeper of the Records of Scotland, said:“The release of the Valuation Rolls for 1920 will be of enormous help for family and local history research, enabling people to discover ancestors and where and how they were living almost a decade after the Census of 1911. The newly-available records are part of the commitment by the National Records of Scotland to improve our service to the public and provide researchers with the resources that they need.”

Annelies van den Belt, the CEO of DC Thomson Family History (formerly known as brightsolid online publishing), who enable the ScotlandsPeople website on behalf of the National Records of Scotland, said:

“We’re very pleased to add this fourth set of Valuation Roll indexes and images to the ScotlandsPeople website – bringing the current total of index entries on the website to over 94 million. These new records will complement the 1895, 1905 and 1915 Valuation Rolls, which have been published over the past 20 months, and will also help family historians who are looking to fill in gaps after the 1911 Census.”

The 1920 Valuation Rolls will be available on the ScotlandsPeople website (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh, and at local family history centres in Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Hawick and Inverness.

The National Records of Scotland & ScotlandsPeople

National Records of Scotland is a Non-Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government. It holds and gives access to the nation's archives, oversees the registration of births, marriages and deaths, produces statistics on Scotland's population and conducts the Scottish Census. It is a centre of expertise on data handling, record keeping and archives.

ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk, the official genealogy website for Scottish ancestry, is a partnership between the National Records of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon, enabled by DC Thomson Family History (formerly known as brightsolid online publishing).

The Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy is an annual institute where the best genealogy educators available teach week-long intensive courses within walking distance of the Family History Library. Each track is focused on a particular area, record set, or methodology that is key to finding your ancestors. The early-bird deadline is fast approaching, October 31, 2013. After this date tuition will increase $50.

Evening Sessions

Each year we offer evening sessions that are open to the public. Even if you can't attend the institute you can still come and enjoy listening to the best educators in the field. Each class is $10 and a list of courses can be found at http://www.ugagenealogy.org/aem.php?lv=p&epg=54

Salt Lake City Tour

SLIG will be hosting a tour of the Salt Lake City area on Sunday, January 13, 2014. This tour is open to non-attendees as well. The tour will begin with Music and the Spoken Word with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, continue through the city with a professional tour guide, and finish with a deluxe lunch at This is the Place Monument. Register atwww.slig.ugagenealogy.org.

Update to AncestryDNA gives a deeper level of insight with expanded information for twenty-six regions

(PROVO, Utah) – October 17, 2013 – Ancestry.com DNA, LLC announced today an update to its popular DNA test. Armed with one of the most comprehensive collections of location based DNA samples from around the world and the latest DNA testing technology, AncestryDNA now maps a test taker’s ethnic origins to 26 global regions, including expanded regions for people of European and West African descent.

“We are rapidly advancing DNA testing for family history,” said Dr. Ken Chahine, Senior Vice President and General Manager of AncestryDNA. “The greatest benefit of this test is that it provides an easy way to help explore one’s ancestral background and discover your family’s past in amazing detail never before available.”

Whether you’re just getting started researching your family history or you are an advanced genealogist tracking down a specific portion of a family tree where records are going cold, the new update to AncestryDNA can help people explore their ancestry beyond historical records.

The new update to AncestryDNA includes:

·Increased number of ethnic regions to 26 from across the globe.

·More detailed African ethnicity – a total of 10 African regions, including 6 different countries/regions within Western Africa including Benin/Togo, Cameroon/Congo, Ivory/Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal.

·More detailed European ethnicity, including Ireland, Great Britain, the Iberian Peninsula and Italy/Greece.

·Improved science, including extensive testing, validation and an increase in the number of reference populations.

·A database of more than 200,000 customers.

“Five years ago, a genealogical DNA test would predict the rough proportions of a person’s ancestry from Europe, Asia, or Africa – but most people could determine that without the aid of a DNA test,” said Dr. Catherine Ball, Vice President of Genomics and Bioinformatics for AncestryDNA. “Today, the AncestryDNA science team has examined more than 700,000 DNA markers to create a genetic portrait for groups of people around the world. By comparing someone’s DNA to this core reference set, we can calculate an ethnicity estimate based on 26 global populations.”

Updates to AncestryDNA Further Advances Family History Exploration

Last year, with the initial launch of AncestryDNA, a test taker was able to receive results that mapped back to 22 different ethnic regions. Today’s announcement marks an expanded range of genetic ethnicity and geographic origins that is currently not available in other consumer DNA tests on the market.

·The journey of many African American’s ancestors can be difficult to research using historical records alone, as most lose the paper trail around the 1870s or before. But now thanks to expanded capabilities that detail African ethnicity into 10 regions, including 6 different countries/regions within Western Africa, AncestryDNA will help people of African descent better understand where their ancestors came from and the cultures of those places, in a way never before possible.

·Previously identified as one ethnicity group, the British Isles is now broken down to expanded regions, divided into Great Britain and Ireland. This development provides additional insight to the approximately 21% of Americans who claim Irish or English heritage.

·Southern Europe is also now separated into two groups including, the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and Italy/Greece, providing more detail for those with Mediterranean heritage where historical records are less likely to be available.

In May 2012, Ancestry.com launched AncestryDNA, a service that analyzes a person’s genome at more than 700,000 marker locations. It is available at www.ancestrydna.com for $99, plus shipping and handling. The price includes a DNA testing kit, genetic lab processing, online results delivered in a private and secure account, as well as continual ethnicity and cousin matching updates. Additional information on AncestryDNA can be found atwww.ancestryDNA.com.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Last Saturday, when I wrote my article on my assignment for the Salt Lake Community CollegeGenealogy Course, I was just coming down with a cold. Every day this past week I have progressively got worse. Besides a head cold, cough and fever I've also have a bad case of laryngitis. I thought yesterday I was actually getting over the fever and starting to mend. Today, instead I am sicker than any of the previous days. I guess I will need to go visit the doctor this coming week.

The only bright part about being sick and cancelling all your obligations, is when your not sleeping you get to sit really quiet and do restful things. Of course, that includes genealogy for me.

As I attempted to recap this weeks lesson, I realize how much jumping around we did. The lesson finished up on Sources and covered Transcripts, Extracts and Abstracts. We also went over Online Family Trees and how they can be a "Blight or Blessing" at times. We needed to explore several online family tree sites. The list included: FamilySearch Family Tree, Ancestry.com (Public Trees), RootsWeb.com, FamilyPursuit.com, MyHeritage.com, and Geni.com. The next step was learning how to add sources to FamilySearch Family Tree and it was recommended to include a complete transcription of the family record.

I was reminded of a great free program that I hadn't reinstalled on my current computer. It's called Transcript. It allows you to view a document and make the transcription from within the program. Needless to say it's back on my computer again.

We covered sources in RootsMagic and where to add the transcription in the detail text, how to analysis the source in the comments area, and mark the sources evidence quality. The RootsMagic webinar #31 "New Source and Citation Features in RootsMagic 5" explains how to do this. Plus we had other videos to watch and articles to read.

After all that, the actual assignment didn't have us submit our sources we worked on. We were just told we need to continue this process on all future sources. So it's one of those we'll catch you down the road if you're not actually doing what your suppose to later.

The real assignment was to participate in a group discussion about "Online Trees vs. Personal Software". We needed to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of Online Family Trees like Family Tree and Ancestry Tree and Personal Family Tree Software like RootsMagic, Ancestral Quest or Legacy. Can we use just one or the other? Why or why not?

There were some great comments. I especially loved the ones saying what a great program RootsMagic is. They would have made great ads. I am only going to share mine with you though.

Just this morning I experienced the frustration of working with an online family tree. I was on FamilySearch Family Tree and discovered that someone simply deleted a couple. The husband was no longer with his parents and siblings. His wife was gone too. All their children were still in Family Tree but unlinked. I added the couple back in but all their temple ordinances would have to be redone. I had to call FamilySearch to have them recover their temple ordinances. I was able to give them exact dates when their temple ordinances were done because I had a copy of them in my RootsMagic database. Online family trees are great for collaboration but there are just so many reasons why you need your own database too.

More features and reports available in desktop programs. This makes a big difference on how you can use the data.

Privacy issues - It's best to keep living people's information off the internet and only store them in a desktop program.

A desktop program helps with the research process. You have time to prove your conclusions before sharing with the world your findings.

You can organize and analyze your data in a particular way on the desktop that online trees can never do.

It's easy to stop and restart your research on a desktop program. You can use To-Do Lists and Research Logs to help manage and track your research efforts.

Online websites can come and go. In our list FamilyPursuit's website was already gone. What happened to everyone's data? When FamilySearch moved their data from NFS to FT there was data loss too. Your database is actually safer in your own hands then completed trusted to one website. You can store your database is many formats and methods to preserve your data and keep it intact.

Online Family Trees are evolving. Sometimes you do need to go back and see an earlier version of your database. What your conclusion was at a given point in time. Keeping backups of your database helps you do that. I have all my backups since 1995 and have had to actually go that far back to look at my data for various reasons.

I love online family trees. It's a great way to find other individuals researching your same line. I've learned great things from other researchers. Both the online tree and the desktop program data can be full of junk or be wonderfully researched. The quality of data in both cases depends on the researcher. Just because an online tree contains no sources it doesn't necessarily tell you the quality of the research. I know many genealogist that never submit their sources to online trees just because they want people to contact them instead.

My conclusion is there is a need for both Online Family Trees and Personal Family Tree Software, but if given the choice I will stick with my RootsMagic.

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There were opportunities for two different extra credit assignments. I did both, even though I didn't need to. So far I've received 100% on all the assignments I have turned in.

1. We needed to participate in FamilySearch Indexing. To earn credit we needed to index 50 records and show a screen shot of our stats and write a little summary of our experience. It's been a while since I indexed so I really thought it would be a piece of cake and fun. I ended up indexing 318 records, but you can see by my comment how much fun I had. NOT! It was nothing like my previous experience indexing.

I haven't indexed in a while so I was excited to try it again. My plans were to just do the 50 that I could get credit for. I got instead this monster batch with all these foreign names I couldn't figure out. It took me FOREVER to get this batch done. I think I was to tired and cranky to be indexing. So this was basically the worst indexing experience I have ever had. Really sorry to say that and I hope you never use this for a quote about our indexing experiences.

2. We needed to attend a Utah Genealogical Association (UGA) Virtual Chapter Meeting and take a screen shot during the webinar to document it. Then write up our experience. I attended last months virtual chapter meeting with Ron Tanner but I didn't realize you needed to take a screen shot during it, so I couldn't get credit. This month's virtual chapter was by our genealogy course teacher Janet Hovorak, "Zap the Grandma Gap: The Ten Best Ideas to Bridge the Generation Gap From Your Ancestors to the Coming Generation".

I think this was about the 5th time I have watched this particular presentation of Janet's. I can honestly say it has never become stale, it just matures and gets better each time. The whole subject matter of the importance of sharing our family history with the younger generation just touches my heart. Janet does a wonderful job explaining why it's important for youth to know their family history. Then she gives wonderful tips on being sneaky about teaching the younger generation about their ancestors and possibly turning them into little genealogists. It makes me wish I heard this presentation when my kids were little. I would have done things so much differently. My only grandchild is almost 18 months, but boy, do I have plans for her. I want her to fall in love with her ancestors and know what she is made of, and what a great future and potential she has. I always cry in Janet's presentation when she tells the story of her grandma's quilt and how it helped her get through a difficult period in her life. She could feel her grandma giving her a hug as she wrapped the quilt around her. I'm not sure how or when, but someday I want my granddaughter to feel me giving her a great big hug from beyond the veil to help her through the rocky roads of life ahead.

Sorry, to jump around so much in this article. We did cover a lot of ground this week.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Zap the Grandma Gap: The Ten Best Ideas to Bridge the Generation Gap From Your Ancestors to the Coming Generation

Presentation description: The 10 most important ideas to build stronger relationships with your posterity by connecting them to their past. If they don't like family history you are doing it wrong. This class will take you from snoring and boring to exciting and inviting.

DC Thomson Family History and FamilySearch.org to make billions of records available for people to search

LONDON, England and SALT LAKE CITY, Utah--Annelies van den Belt, the new CEO of DC Thomson Family History, the British-based leader in online family history and owner of findmypast and Genes Reunited, has announced a major new partnership with US-based FamilySearch.org that will give family history enthusiasts access to billions of records online and new technology to collaboratively research their family roots.

DC Thomson Family History, formerly known as brightsolid online publishing, is collaborating with FamilySearch, which has the largest collections of genealogical and historical records in the world, to deliver a wide range of projects including digital preservation, records search, technological development and the means to allow family historians to share their discoveries.

More than 13 million records from FamilySearch.org launched today on findmypast.com, including major collections of births, marriages and deaths covering America, Australia, and Ireland. Around 600 additional collections, containing millions of records, will follow.

The two organisations have a long history of working together on historical projects, including indexing 132 million records of the 1940 US census and two hundred years of British Army Service Records (Chelsea Pensioners) in a joint digitisation project with The National Archives.

Van den Belt said: “This is fantastic news for our customers all over the world. As a leader in online family history we will be able to offer access to a much wider variety of records dating back hundreds of years and the first batch are ready to search on findmypast. The convenience of searching many treasures from FamilySearch.org along with our own extensive collections will provide rich new insights for our customers.

“This partnership with FamilySearch will accelerate the momentum of our next phase of global growth into new non-English-speaking markets and give more people more access to more records to uncover their family history. This really cements our position as a market leader.”

“We are excited to work with DC Thompson Family History on a vision we both share,” said Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch. “Expanding online access to historical records through this type of collaboration can help millions more people discover and share their family’s history.”

DC Thomson Family History is the British-based leader in online family history, which operates major online sites including findmypast, Genes Reunited and the British Newspaper Archive. It launched in America last year with its findmypast brand.

DC Thomson Family History has a strong record of partnerships with non-profit and public sector organisations such as the British Library and The National Archives among many other major archives and organisations around the world.

About DC Thomson Family History

DC Thomson Family History, is a British-owned world leader in online genealogy, with a record of online innovation in the field of family history.

It boasts 18 million registered users across its family of online genealogy brands

It hosts over a billion genealogical records across its family of brands including Genes Reunited and findmypast

DC Thomson Family History helps partners to digitise their precious collections, providing them with an archival quality digital surrogate of their records, or publishing existing indexes and transcriptions.

Several successful partnerships with DC Thomson Family History include (but are not limited to):

1911census.co.uk with The National Archives; comprising 36 million records, this is one of the largest online family history projects undertaken by The National Archives and a commercial partner.

ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk is a pay-as-you-go e-commerce site operated by brightsolid as a partnership between the National Records of Scotland (NRS) and the Court of the Lord Lyon. The site allows searches of 50 million names, has more than 30 million images and over one million registered customers.

The British Newspaper Archive (BNA) is a 10-year partnership project between the British Library and DC Thomson Family History. The content for the website comes from the newspaper collection at Colindale Library, and the plan is to have 40 million, fully-searchable pages on the website by 2021, with at least 8,000 pages being added to the site every day.

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch International (online at FamilySearch.org) is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,800 family history centers in 70 countries, including the renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Searchable historic records are made available on FamilySearch.org through the help of thousands of volunteers from around the world. These volunteers transcribe (index) information from digital copies of handwritten records to make them easily searchable online. More volunteers are needed (particularly those who can read foreign languages) to keep pace with the large number of digital images being published online at FamilySearch.org. Learn more about volunteering to help provide free access to the world’s historic genealogical records online atFamilySearch.org.

FamilySearch is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources for free at FamilySearch.org or through more than 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Last week's webinar, Up In Smoke!! What To Do When the Courthouse Burns, presented by Peggy Clemens Lauritzen, is now available to ISGS members in the Members Section of the ISGS website (http://ilgensoc.org/members.php).

Coming in 2014: In a little over a week, we will announce the 2014 schedule. We have some great presentations in store for you. Stay tuned! For the complete list of upcoming webinars, visit http://ilgensoc.org/cpage.php?pt=234.

Support the ISGS Webinar program by making a financial contribution, which will help ISGS expand its educational offerings in a virtual manner. To learn why we need your help, or to make a contribution, please visit http://ilgensoc.org/cpage.php?pt=345.

Monday, October 14, 2013

The first tranche of burial records from another set of data held by The National Archives has been added to the Deceased Online website,www.deceasedonline.com.

The dataset of transcriptions, RG37 ‘Removals of graves and tombstones’, comprises records from over 200 closed cemeteries and burial ground across many areas of England and Wales. The total records will comprise over 175,000 names/burials, with the first 105,000 now available on the website, dating back to the 17th century. Full details can be found on the website at this link:

This is the third set of data from The National Archives now available on Deceased Online the others being the historic Brompton Cemetery in London and a collection of military burial records from many sites across the UK.

You can also read about the RG37 collection in Emma Jolly’s latest blog at: